This is starting to be a pattern: Matthew Yglesias advocates fraud as a means to his desired social outcomes. Last time he said it ‘makes sense’ for the government to make laws saying student loans weren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy so they’d be cheaper to get, but now that they’re coming due, it’s time to rescind that rule after the fact since it’s inconvenient to actually carry it out. This time he (half-jokingly, I guess?) wishes the CBO would fudge numbers, to make health-care suppliers think Medicare spending is destined to increase far slower than it actually will, so suppliers they won’t build as much excess health-care supply in anticipation of those government dollars (which are actually coming, in theory, but suppliers won’t know that). Voila, self-fulfilling cost controls! It’s like if you lie on your credit application, you’ll get a lower interest rate, which will indeed make you more likely to pay it back – also self-fulfilling. Why don’t we just do these things all the time, since we are so deft at convincing ourselves that they are justified? Besides, it’s all so much easier and more straightforward than just using, you know, freedom. Anyway, I guess all the government’d have to do is to continue to hide how much Medicare dollars it’s actually spending, fudge the books, play coy with budget categories, make it a crime to report accurate statistics, etc., so that nobody ever figures it out. Fraud, manipulation and endless lying: is there any progressive goal that doesn’t necessitate them? Meanwhile, tell me again why I should trust the CBO on anything?

I’d like to ask her, though, what makes Hezbollah a “progressive social movement”? Because it builds hospitals and schools? That hardly makes a movement “progressive.” Has any modern political entity not built hospitals and schools when it had power? Adolf Hitler built hospitals and schools, as did everyone from Augusto Pinochet to Georgios Papadopoulos. So what?

Hezbollah is notoriously hostile to every social value liberals and progressives hold dear, from women’s rights to gay rights, with one exception. Hezbollah says the United States and Israel are the Great Satan and the Little Satan. That’s it. That, all by itself, is enough to get a socially retrograde totalitarian terrorist organization labeled “progressive” even by a professor who adheres to non-violent politics.

Pretty much.

I seem to have missed the kerfluffle over the supposed “swagger-jacking” of black culture by supposedly ‘happening’ new restaurants in gentrifying DC neighborhoods. What’s funny is how few of the commenters are sympathetic to the author’s pleas; sure, diversity and political correctness is nice and all during your freshman orientation or when you’re drafting laws about contractor set-asides or something, but not when it threatens something as substantial and fundamental in peoples’ lives as a hip SWPL nightlife. Then, they don’t even wanna hear it! Even more hilarious is there’s going to be a “panel” to talk about it all this Sunday. Reading between the lines, sounds like the restaurants’ execs are going to be bringing in some (black, I assume) Georgetown professors to (provisionally, of course, and perhaps with the promise of future “panels” or perhaps “outreach”) ‘bless’ these restaurants’ existence on behalf of The Black Community. Sure to be an exciting discussion. Can’t wait to read the minutes!